I don't much care for any of the official endings, so I've created one of my own. Its basis derives from the default Command Spell ending, with a few sprinklings of other endings I've seen and some of my own ideas. It probably seems overly complex at first glance, but resolution shouldn't take long once folks get the hang of it.

When a character reaches the Crown of Command space, they cast the Command Spell on each of their turns, as with the basic ending. However, the method of determining the result is somewhat more complex, as follows:

1) The player on the Crown rolls two dice.

2) The next player in the turn order chooses one of the two dice and rerolls it. This continues around the table until every player still in the game has rerolled a die, ending with the player on the Crown. For balance reasons, no player may choose to skip their reroll.

3) The player on the Crown of Command may use fate to reroll the dice a final time, as normal.

After this process is complete, the outcome is according to the following table:

2-5) The character at the Crown of Command loses 1 life.
6) All characters lose 1 life.
7) All characters not at the Crown of Command lose 1 life.
8-9) The player at the Crown of Command chooses a character to lose 1 life.
10-11) All characters heal 1 life.
12) The character at the Crown of Command heals 1 life.

There is also an additional wrinkle if the Reaper is being used. If either die is a one, the player on the Crown of Command must move the Reaper to a character outside the Inner Region who must encounter him as normal.

Also, if anyone chooses to give this a try, I would recommend forbidding healing (except from the Command Spell, obviously) once someone has reached the Crown. That will prevent any kind of standoff situation from arising, as well as creating a greater need for players to try for one of the healing results when rerolling.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I would definitely be interested in some feedback before attempting to run it in a full-scale game.

Too fussy. Some of the issues here are evident without needing to play test it.

I'm always one for an adding something new and interesting for the game. But the Command Spell as the default ( and uninteresting) method of ending the game, merely by killing off all opposition (in disregard of Alignment), needs to be quick. It's tedious as is, and prolonging it doesn't help.

In addition, these rules give everyone else in the land, who hasn't achieved the CoC, control over the Crown when they haven't earned it. Overall, this approach makes the CoC less, not more, than it is; potentially the most powerful magic object in the Land. That you recommend a restriction on healing and a tie in to the Reaper will be two more problems for some groups. Restricting healing is never a good idea; if someone achieves the CoC and can't use it to take out an opponent, then that one isn't worthy. And there are already quicker and cleaner ways to an end a game without facing the healing conundrum.

You could put this into an AltEnd card (I'm not certain if that's what you meant) with some other name for it to come up by random draw. But as a replacement for the standard ending, it doesn't work for me, and I know as an AltEnd my group wouldn't want to test it. I would have to run from the table in a shower of tokens, for they are all into beating each other to the CoC for whatever ending awaits, and they would feel cheated in drawing this card.

I'm sorry if I sound harsh, as I'm just trying to be honest, and at least it's one response in place of none after 30+ viewings.You might try tweaking another version if you want to get others to try this. Then again, maybe someone already is and will eventually get back to you.

I would have to agree that this appears a little time consuming for an endgame. It is however a pretty cool mechanic, which is simple and encourages a bit of player interaction (and possible backstabbing!)

Perhaps you could rework it as an ending so that the table is similar to Judgement Day, or you could just have it as an Event (or two) that could add a neat bit of interaction during the game.

No apology needed, of course. I should clarify that we usually play with only three or four people, so going around the table like that once a round wouldn't take all that long. It would probably be too tedious with any more players than that. Even still, I fully realize that it's not something for everyone.

I did have an additional after reading JCHendee's comment that having control over the Crown be something that should be earned. Perhaps one way to tone down the rerolling would be to restrict it to only players who have a talisman. My narrative explanation for the whole process is that I interpret the Command spell as being a struggle of wills between the bearer of the Crown and those who would seek it for themselves. It therefore makes sense that a character would need to have some connection to the crown (via a talisman) in order to resist. I already have some house rules in place to make earning a talisman more challenging, so that would probably work well as a compromise for my group (who have already raised concerns over the amount of rolling that would be required).

As for the Reaper and healing rules, they are definitely suggestions and not a core element of the idea. It would probably make sense to choose one or the other, since they both serve to solve the same problem. The main focus of the Reaper addition was to act as a cautionary deterrent against players who might try to force the roll to go low and damage the Crown holder, since most of the rolls that would result in damage would also attract the Reaper's attention. However, it also would break a stalemate by eventually killing the other players no matter how much they manage to heal themselves. Especially if you use the rule from the Danse Macabre and make all the rolls at -1, which is something I plan to try.

I personally don't care for most of the alternate endings and therefore don't use them. There's no reason why this couldn't simply be added to the mix, though.

One way to speed things up could be to substitute "is eliminated from the game" in place of "lose 1 life." However, I personally have little interest in endings like Judgement Day that leave the outcome of the game up to a single die roll.

FoldedDice said:

Now that's interesting, as I'm all for anything that puts the game's namesake back in the position of importance, where it belongs.

FoldedDice said:

I think as an alternative or addition it would be fine. Much as the Reaper is popular, not all groups use it. For my own stuff, I try to stick to additions that don't have a primary requirement for owning anything but the core game. But bonuses for having certain expansions can be a plus for some groups.

FoldedDice said:

Agreed. My group plays only King of the Hill [Conditional] and some scenarios, such as Warlock's Quest (with additions). We almost never play a straight nor random AltEnd.

FoldedDice said:

Overall, the kill-all endings are the most tedious of all. They put my group right to sleep. So if "eliminating" all opposition is the goal, then by all means, the option to keep it short is best. Then again, there's nothing faster than KotH.

You should try mocking up an AltEnd card with final sections for OPTION: the Reaper, etc. Have you tried out Strange Eons and Jon New's Talisman plugin as yet? I do all my work in Photoshop, but even I admire that little program and Jon's massive effort to expand its use for Talisman.

I haven't, as I don't own a printer and tend to just either memorize my house rules or write them out on scratch paper. I'll look into it, though.

Strange eons is certainly worth investing time in. You can always export the files and save to disc and print them elsewhere!

Ell.

Yeah, what Ell. said. Plus you can post the graphic here for people interested to use for print and play.

Very well. Here's my attempt. Sorry about the MSPaint drawing.

EDIT: And the broken image apparantly. It's been probably five or six years since I've tried to post an image to a forum. Anyone know what's going on?

FoldedDice said:

Actually, this reminds me a bit of Ell's Pandora's Box ending for 2nd ed.

That was an ending I quite enjoyed & tinkered with it a bit more to align with the probability of the dice rolls.

FoldedDice said:

Hard to say, since there's no URL showing in your post to work with. The image does need to be on the web somewhere and not on your computer, as this forum system does not upload images. So if you don't have a place to host your files, you'll need to find one.

There's lots of places like Flickr that can do this for images (only), but I prefer DropBox.com for its simplicity in syncing files (of any kind) on my system in a target folder to my DropBox account. A 2GB account is free. I use it for hosting downloadable files on my game blog (see my sig). No fuss, I just drop them into my dropbox folder on my machine and off they go. If I edit a file in that folder, when I'm done, the dropbox automatically syncs the new version to the my online account. I right click any file in that folder on my machine and there's an option in the popup menu to copy the online file's URL. But all this may be more than you want.

Once you've got the hosting issue settled in your own way, you copy the URL location, click the Image button in the post's editor, then enter/past the URL into the field and that should do it.

Also, for a pretty good (and free) graphics editor, check out GIMP. It's somewhat like Photoshop was about 7 years ago. It's perfect for most people who want a bit more than MSPaint. It has lots of room for you to grow into if your needs grow. All you will need is a copy of the AltEnd template graphic, then open it in the graphics editor of choice, add text (and image if you want), and then save to a new file.

And if you want to try Strange Eons and Jon's Talisman Plugin, well, there's the links for you.

Lastly, if this is kind of a one time thing, maybe I can help you out. I can slap together an AltEnd card with your final text content and post it here so you can grab it as well. But if homebrewing appeals to you as a future pursuit, it is time to get yourself rigged to brew. Many of us here can help you out in various ways, and a lot of non-brewers who get into home made additions always prefer a component they can print and make at home to match a games motif.

The image is there, it is just the link was to the hosting page.

You can see it here -

talismanisland said:

Odd. The direct link is what I tried first, actually, and that didn't work. It showed up as a broken image, so I tried changing it to the link the site provided me. Your post came up with a broken image the first time I viewed it, too. It showed up for me when I loaded the page a second time. Maybe the same thing would have happened if I had done that initially. No real reason to now, though, as long as everyone can see the image you posted. Thanks for that.

On topic, I suspect this will probably be a one time endeavor for the foreseeable future. We don't play very frequently (and that will probably get worse now that my two roommates have moved out of town), so the stock game has plenty of content for the time being. I was only really interested in changing the elements of gameplay that I found to be a bit hollow, which at the moment is the Lord of Darkness and the method in which warlock quests are handled, but my Warlock rules are 90% based off of the warlock quest alt-ending and my Lord of Darkness is pretty much just the Ice Queen with some slight rules changes to make him feel more in theme.

EDIT: And now talismanisland's image has stopped working for me again. I'll look into getting it onto a different host when I have a chance. In the meanwhile, the image is there for anyone who's interested, it just looks like you'll have to paste the link directly into your browser bar in order to reach it.

Hmmm... I still see nothing, even on Jon's repost. Perhaps my adblock plugins are knocking it down. Could someone please post the URL in plain text so I can check it against my adblock list?

Yeah, it's http://www.shareimages.com/images/pics/0/0/2/50589-qpeWmpyek5.slpyVmao-shared_destinies.png

Interesting... that server is not on my blocked list. I'll try linking the card myself and see what happens...

And it worked (33.3% size reduced). Oh, go figure.

ADDENDUM: And stranger still... the minute I posted it, the image Jon posted showed up. Must be something screwy with my browser.

No, it's not you JC. It shows up if you have seen it directly, and then disappears. Must be some form of protection for the hosting site to stop or deter hotlinking to images...

AH yes! That makes sense. So definitely not a good place to host images.